After seven years of anemic economic growth, Americans are facing limited job opportunities, stagnant wages, a diminishing middle class and dismal economic prospects for our youth. A recent Pew Research study found young adults more likely to be living in their parents’ homes than at any time since 1940 — Hillary Clinton refers to them as Bernie Sanders basement dwellers.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, nearly one in six young men is either jobless or incarcerated, up from about one in 10 in 1980, when the economy was in recession. Gross Domestic Product should be averaging an annual growth rate of 3 percent to 4 percent, particularly coming out of a deep recession. It hasn’t happened.

In 2010, the White House projected that GDP growth would “accelerate in 2011 to 3.8 percent” and “exceed 4 percent per year in 2012-2014.” However, GDP has averaged about 2 percent since the recession ended, producing the worst economic recovery since World War II.

So far this year, the situation is even worse, with GDP averaging about 1 percent. The Federal Reserve is projecting GDP growth going forward at a mere 2 percent annually. In fact, the economy is so weak that the Fed is afraid to raise interest rates even one quarter of one percent (0.25 percent). Despite all the hyperbole about the supposed economic recovery, this reticence speaks volumes as to the actual state of the economy.